


Leather Jackets and Press Passes

by orphan_account



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Blue & Gold, F/M, Riverdale High School, Southside Serpent Jughead Jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 21:42:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15894696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: AU: On the first day of Junior year, Jughead Jones hears about her before he even sees her. She is a transfer student from NYC - the teenager who had solved the murder of her cousin.





	Leather Jackets and Press Passes

**Author's Note:**

> An AU were Betty moves to Riverdale in Junior year. This is part of my Meet Cute, Stay Cute series. You don't have to have read any of the others for this one to work. All of them stand on their own.

On the first day of Junior year, Jughead Jones hears about her before he even sees her. She is a transfer student from NYC, the teenager who had solved the murder of her cousin. _The New York Times_ had done a profile of her, _The New Yorker_ a tongue in cheek Talk of the Town column. 

Veronica Lodge did her level best to befriend Betty on her first day. Everyone did. The interesting thing about Betty is that while she was friendly towards almost everyone it was hard to point to any one person at Riverdale High School and say that they were her friend.

Betty used her clout to restart The Blue & Gold. Her emphasis was on investigative pieces, but she wasn’t opposed to publishing the occasional gossip column or horoscope. Her many acquaintances were eager if inconsistent contributors. 

The first time Betty heard of Jughead was on her second day of class, when Veronica, pointed him out in the cafeteria to Betty “He’s the leader of The Serpents. Best to avoid him”.  Betty dismissed Veronica’s warning without comment, after all she had dealt with much bigger issues than a gang of high schoolers (a murderer, and corrupt cops for starters). 

Betty didn’t have Jughead in any of her classes Junior year. Even though she didn’t try to avoid him, the two never really met. They passed each other in halls, and occasionally shared a long table in the library, but they never spoke. 

Jughead was often surrounded by his friends Archie, Toni, Fangs, and Sweet Pea. They all dressed like him, but most were much more approachable, outgoing even. He was the one person in the crowd who wasn’t talking for the most part.  

There were rumors about Jughead and knives, men tied up in basements, a gun in his locker, drugs in his backpack. But Weatherbee never caught him, no matter how hard he tried. There were rumors about Betty as well now. She would smile, she would say polite things, but she never said yes to a date. She had knocked Chuck out once. She was “the bitch that let no one in” according to Reggie. She was known to do anything for a story.

In Senior year Jughead’s right hand man Fangs was killed. A hiker found Fangs in a gulch on the Northside of Riverdale, shot through the back.  The police had no leads. That is when Betty finally spoke to Jughead.

He was out on the bleacher’s smoking, when she walked up to him, her pale blue trench coat unbuttoned. It was an unseasonably warm November day. She didn’t introduce herself. She knew they knew each-others names, even if they had never exchanged sentences.

“Can you tell me about what Fangs was doing on the afternoon that he died?” Betty asks, no preamble.

“Not much.” Jughead says, looking past her at the solid brick wall that is the back of Riverdale High. 

“What if I could show you the autopsy reports?” Betty says. He meets her eyes. He is surprised by the warmth he sees in them. She doesn’t wait for him to answer, instead she extends a manila folder towards him.

“How did you get these?”

“I have my ways.”

He flips through the photos. She notices how his fingers clench around the paper. How he does a sharp intake of breath of the close up on the bullet.

“The police didn’t tell me that the killer shot through his serpent tattoo.” Jughead said surprised

“Interesting.” Betty says. The police refused to talk to her, point blank. She noticed that _The Riverdale Register_ , run by the Mantles, didn’t mention this either. She knows for a fact that they bribed the coroner too, that they have a photocopied version of the file Jughead holds in his hands.

“He wasn’t working with me that day. He was supposed to meet someone in Fox Forrest. Someone he’d been hooking up with for a bit. But he wouldn’t tell me their name, wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Oh.”

“I think it was a Northsider. But I can’t be sure.” Jughead extends the folder back to Betty. His eyes are full of anger, but she knows it has nothing to do with her.

“Thank you.” Betty says, taking the file from him.

“I’ve been investigating this too. Could we work together?” He asks. He knows he has a reputation for telling, not asking, but he doesn’t think that will go far with Betty.

She smiles her reply. Half an hour later they are in Pop’s, eating burgers and writing down all that they both know. It goes on like this for moths, mostly at Pop’s and the _Blue & Gold_ offices. They work together for hours, on weekends and weekdays.

They are a good team. Her ability to research and his ability to intimidate balance each other out nicely. They both share a yearning for the truth at all costs.

Archie tries to help them one afternoon, the day they find out that Fangs was supposed to meet Moose Mason on the day that he died.  The next day Archie complains to the rest of The Serpents, that trying to follow Jughead and Betty’s conversation is similar to decoding a hieroglyph. “They are like an old married couple, right down to the fact that they have no physical contact” he jokes, a little high in the gym. Toni and Sweet Pea laugh, as Jughead protests that it is not funny.

Betty and Jughead solve the case a few days later, after interviewing Moose's mother, Mrs. Mason. It turns out it was an accident. Mr. Mason had found out about the relationship between his son and Fangs. Instead of confronting his son about it, or better yet, understanding the situation, Mr. Mason texted Fangs as if he was Moose and arranged the meet up. Mr. Mason had only planned to threaten Fangs but anger overcame him. He killed him within minutes of meeting him, then fired a second shot through the tattoo to make it seem gang related when it wasn’t.  

The first week after Jughead and Betty solve the case is an awkward one for both of them. They no longer have an excuse to work together. After all the late nights and shared stake outs, it is shocking for both of them to have free time again. Betty finds herself with too much time on her hands. She writes every column for the Blue & Gold that week, except for the movie review, which Jughead insists on writing.

They go three days without seeing each other, because they don’t really have a reason, at least not the one they had before. On the fourth day Jughead interrupts her with a kiss while she is working in the Blue & Gold office. It is like unlocking a door they didn’t even know was there. They already share a whole language of work, of understanding together, but this is new.

When they walk through school together there are rumors that they are working on a new case. There are rumors that she got into Columbia and he didn’t. There are rumors that they already signed a lease on an apartment in Harlem.  There are many rumors about the hands that are constantly intertwined.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make the world go round!


End file.
